TYPE-WRITERS. 



eminent Armenians holding offices in the Gov- 

 ernment, were made members. Moussa Bey, who 

 had been captured by the Turkish police after a 

 long search, was exiled by order of the Sultan, 

 who told the Patriarch and the British and Rus- 

 sian ambassadors, that reforms would be intro- 

 duced to insure liberty of person and property to 

 the loyal population of Armenia, but not until 

 material and moral peace was restored. Monsi- 

 gnor Achikian was induced by a promise that his 

 demands for the Armenian Church should be 

 granted, and that the condition of the Christian 

 population of Asia Minor should be improved to 

 withdraw finally his resignation on Aug. 31, and 

 .a few days later the Porte sent back his memo- 

 randum reciting the demands that he made in 

 the name of his coreligionists as inopportune, 

 whereupon he again offered his resignation, 

 which was accepted on the part of the Armenian 

 National Assembly on Sept. 19. The investigat- 

 ing commission was dissolved and a new one 

 appointed to consider Armenian reforms, as the 

 first appointees endeavored to evade the respon- 

 sibility. Concealed arms were discovered, bands 

 of Armenians began to raid the Kurds from 

 Russian territory, and many persons were ar- 

 rested both in Armenia and in Constantinople 

 for engaging in. a revolutionary conspiracy to 

 declare the province independent. Among them 

 was a naturalized American citizen who was re- 

 leased on parole at the intercession of Mr. Hirsch. 

 On Oct. 24 four were convicted of treason in 

 Constantinople and condemned to death, and six 

 others were sentenced to imprisonment for long 

 terms. In the beginning of December the 

 leading officials, lawyers, and merchants of the 

 Armenian community in Constantinople signed 

 an address of loyalt/and devotion to the Sultan 

 condemning the nationalist agitation as the work 

 of misguided persons who have no authority or 

 influence with their coreligionists. 



TYPE-WRITERS. A type-writer is a ma- 

 chine in which impressions are made on paper 

 through mechanism operated by keys for the 

 purpose of producing legible matter as a substi- 

 tute for manuscript. A more concise definition 

 is, '' a machine to do the work of the pen." 



The Mill Machine. The earliest suggestion 

 for mechanism to do the work of handwriting 

 appears to have been given by Henry Mill, of 

 London, to whom a patent was granted Jan. 7, 

 1714. No description of the drawings was given, 

 and the information is meager. A vague tradi- 

 tion is supplemented by a paper filed in the ar- 

 chives of the British Patent Office, bearing date 

 as given above. The contents are as follow : 



Anne, by the grace of God, etc., to all to whom 

 these presents shall come, greeting: Whereas our 

 trusty and well-beloved subject, Henry Mill, hath, by 

 his h'umble peticion, represented vnto vs, that he has, 

 by his great study, paines, and expence, lately in- 

 vented and brought to perfection "An Artificial Ma- 

 chine or Method' for the Impressing or Transcribing 

 of Letters Singly or Progressively one after another, 

 as in Writing whereby all Writings whatsoever may 

 be Engrossed in Paper or Parchment so Neat and fcx- 

 act as' not to be distinguished from print : that the 

 said Machine or Method may be of great Vse in Set- 

 tlements and Publick Records, the Impression being 

 Beeper and more Lasting than any other Writing, 

 and not to be Erased or Counterfeited without Mani- 

 fest Discovery," etc. 



Mill was a native of London, born atxwt 1680. 



Although his machine recei\ed th,. r u U l appro- 

 bation, it does nut seem to hare oonM into MM- 



lar favor. He had a lilx-ral education, and at 

 an early age developed K ivat skill in n.. , 

 While quite young be \vas choM-n chief , i.-rm. , , 

 of the New River Company, one nf H,, 

 and largest corporations supplying Lmni. 

 water. He also designed tin- system of water 

 supply for the town of Northampton. II- mm 

 with the New River Cpmpany till his death, at 

 the age of ninety years. Tin- first in-trumcnt 

 known to succeed Mill's anywhere WH- 

 France, in 1784, which made embossed 

 ters for the use of the -blind. 



The Bain and Wright MaHiiiie.-Mnn- 

 than a century elapsed, and then the invention 

 of Alexander Bain and Thomas Wright, of Kng- 

 land, was, on Dec. 21, 1841, announced as an 

 "Improvement in applying Electricity 

 print Intelligence at Distant Places" (Brit. Pat. 

 92,049). It was designed simply for what is now 

 called the "Printing Telegraph." All printing 

 telegraphs are type-writing machines, and the 

 Bain instrument has many of the devi< 

 characteristics of the type-writer. But it was 

 not a success, and never came into use. Other 

 machines were announced at intervals, but not 

 one of them seemed to be a practical working 

 machine or to have any marketable value. 



The ThiirberChirographer. American in- 

 ventors did not display any genius for type-writ- 

 ing machines, so far as the records show, before 

 1843. On Aug. 26, in that year, Charles Thurber, 

 of Worcester, Mass., received a patent for a * Me- 

 chanical Chirographer " (U. 8. Pat. ::..".':: . Two 

 years afterward he took out another patent (U. 

 S. Pat, 4,271). His claim was for "communicat- 

 ing the motions to the pen or pencil by means of 



THE THURBER CHIROGRAPHER. 



cams acting on frames, so that the vertical and 

 horizontal strokes can be given by separate move- 

 ments, and the oblique and curved strokes by 

 the combined action of the two." A full-pap- 

 specimen of the work done by the machine built 

 under the second patent was filed in the patent 

 office and a copy inserted and bound in the vol- 

 ume containing the commissioner's report for 

 that year. The keys of the first machine were 

 small steel rods, 4' inches long, with common 

 tvpes inserted in the lower ends and beann 

 buttons at the top, on which the corresponding 

 characters were marked. The machine pnnl 

 45 letters and characters. In front of the wheel, 

 or key frame, was a roller which carried tn< 

 paper, revolving on a steel shaft two and a h 

 feet long. At the back of the frame was a small 



